Three news organizations have expanded their legal challenge against the White House over press access, accusing the administration of defying a judge’s orders by barring their reporters from covering President Donald Trump in the Oval Office and aboard Air Force One. The outlets say the continued exclusion from the rotating White House press “pool” violates their First Amendment rights.
CNN, MSNOW and Politico said Wednesday that Trump is retaliating against them over coverage he dislikes. They argue that the administration’s actions violate previous orders from U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, who directed the White House to restore the outlets’ full access to the group of journalists assigned to cover the president.
Despite those rulings, the White House has continued to bar reporters from the outlets from covering Trump in “the very locations that the president most frequently engages with the press,” Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., an attorney for the news organizations, said in a statement.
The latest filing asks the court to make its earlier orders permanent.
The case centers on whether the president — or any government official — may punish news organizations because of the content of their reporting. The outlets contend that such retaliation amounts to “viewpoint discrimination,” which is prohibited by the First Amendment’s protection of free speech.
Trump maintains that he is not required to admit news organizations whose coverage he dislikes onto White House grounds, Air Force One or other official sites. The White House had not responded to the amended lawsuit by Thursday morning.
“Every news organization now faces the risk of similar punishment for coverage the President deems insufficiently favorable,” the outlets wrote in the filing, “and the public is deprived of current and complete information about its government.”
The filing was submitted roughly two weeks after Kelly ruled that CNN, MS NOW and Politico were likely to prevail in the extraordinary dispute between the president and the news organizations covering his administration.
In a win for the journalists, Kelly broadened an earlier temporary ruling that found the administration had violated the outlets’ Fifth Amendment right to due process. On Oct. 13, he also accepted the outlets’ separate argument that Trump’s ban violated their First Amendment right to free speech.
Kelly rejected Trump’s claim that the restrictions were based on policy considerations, including national security. Instead, the judge concluded that the ban stemmed from Trump’s stated view that the outlets’ reporting was inaccurate and biased.
“Simply put,” Kelly wrote in his opinion, “That is unlawful viewpoint discrimination” — a government action targeting speech or coverage because officials disapprove of its message.
